The silly thing throughout has been that had Mr Peters told the truth at the outset, no harm would have been done. Nobody could have really believed his career survived on his small party’s membership fees. Had he admitted, when asked, that he had needed help with a legal bill, who could have blamed him?

But Mr Peters’ instinct was never to be candid. He seemed to have a congenital aversion to the straight answer. Invariably he treated questions from the press as a personal affront, to be met with verbal jousts, semantic denials and obfuscation. His “testimony” on Wednesday night confirmed one other peculiarity about this former lawyer – he is remarkably inarticulate. Swallowing words, blurring the point and scrambling sense. This, wilfully or involuntarily, contributes to the fog of evasion. His appearance failed to rebut a single piece of Mr Glenn’s evidence.

Telling the truth would have been much wiser in hindsight for Peters.

Enough of him. New Zealanders should consider today what a debt we owe Owen Glenn. He cared enough for his good name in this country to come here and clear it. In doing so he will surely rid us of a politician who misused his considerable talent and charm to mislead the public on important policies, sow fear and suspicion of change and survive on a populism that has turned out to be not only destructive but dishonest.

Mr Henry insists that Mr Peters was not the “client” referred to in the e-mail and, therefore, Mr Peters should be taken at his word when he says he did not ask Mr Glenn for money.

Before Mr Glenn produced his phone records, that was an improbable, but conceivable, explanation of events.

It is no longer, unless Mr Henry expects the committee to believe that while talking to Mr Peters, Mr Glenn was also conducting another conversation with someone else who just happened to be making representations on Mr Peters’ behalf without the MP’s knowledge.

Yes, he was on two phone calls at the same time. Well this is what Helen Clark seems to believe.

For too long, he has trifled with the truth and danced on the heads of legal pins. By doing so, he would like his supporters to believe he has simply been refusing to dance to the tune of petty bureaucrats and the news media.

But what he has, in fact, been doing is showing contempt for Parliament, the law and the public. Remember, it was an audience member who asked Mr Peters at a Grey Power meeting in July to explain why NZ First had not declared money received from the Spencer Trust, a shadowy legal entity administered by his brother Wayne.

Mr Peters replied that: “Everything that [NZ First] was required to do within the law has been done,” has now been shown, by the party’s own admission that it broke electoral law, to be false.

Indeed. And there may well be others laws broken with their false returns.

The Prime Minister, Helen Clark, continues to obfuscate and dither over whether to sack the suspended Minister of Foreign Affairs, Winston Peters, says The Press in an editorial.

Again the key issue is not whether she will sack him. It is whether she will rule him out post-election.

Now, despite the compelling evidence presented by Glenn which Peters abysmally failed to rebut, Clark continues to suggest there is enough there to cause her to have doubts. This is nonsense. Clark is failing to act not because there is any real doubt any more, but out of political calculation, because she may need Peters in future. In doing so, she badly compromises her own reputation for political integrity.

A less charitable person might say it confirms her own political integrity reputation!

Having worked hard before his appearance to confuse the issue by suggesting that Glenn might somehow have misremembered events or got muddled, Labour continues, by pointing to minor discrepancies or errors, to try to generate a smokescreen around his evidence and cast doubt on it. But unless there is some dramatic new evidence that has not yet been revealed, no honest, objective observer who saw and heard Glenn this week, and watched Peters’ reply, can any longer doubt the matter.

It is ironic that Helen Clark whines and whines that National should not be on the Privileges Committee. Because if any group of MPs could be seen to be acting as advocates for one side, it is the Labour MPs who seem to be unpaid Counsels for Winston Peters.

The New Zealand First party itself has shown, by the evidence that has now emerged of inaccurate election donation returns not just once but in election after election, that it too apparently believes it does not have to play by the same rules as everyone else. This has happened so often that it is hard escape the belief that it is a deliberate tactic designed, for electoral advantage, to bamboozle the party’s supporters about the source of its income.

The rhetoric of parts of Peters’ privileges committee evidence, suggesting a malign conspiracy against him, was clearly a warm-up for what is likely to be the theme of his election campaign. It must be hoped that voters have the sense to see through it and ensure that we have had the last of him in government and of New Zealand First in Parliament.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 12th, 2008 at 8:13 am and is filed under NZ Politics.
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50 Responses to “The Editors have no doubt”

Well we’re clearly now in the realm of farce with Peters. Hes a lying thieving bastard and we all know it.

Time to move on.

Time to turn the heat on Helen Clark and examine exactly what role she played in this entire saga. We already know she knew about it from the start but we’re suposed to beileve that Mike Williams approved the loan without mentioning it to Helen who has been keeping him on a short leash since his high pitched 9 lies of Christmas rendition?

I think these editorials are all so much puffery. They skip over issues that to me are much more important, namely what the Prime minister of New Zealand has been up to. She has to have mislead parliament. Where’s the outrage over this?

Secondly, what was the deal?? Glenn was a Labour party supporter, and he and Helen Klark and Mike Williams decided to give $100,000 to Winston Peters. Surely the most glaringly obvious question that needs to be asked is why? This money could have gone to Labour, who no doubt sorely needed it. Instead it went to NZ First.

Why would one party give such a huge sum to another party?

There has to some kind of nefarious goings on here that are as yet undiscovered. At the very least, it could be construed that Peter’s was paid the $100,000 by Glenn just so The Labour party could be assured of his continued government support. If so, this is a blatant example of political blackmail, gangsterism and cronyism that I find hard to believe cannot be in breach of some law.

I still maintain that Klark, Glenn, Peters and Mike Williams should be the subject of much more intense investigation, by the SFO or some other organ of the justice system. They have perverted the course of democracy. In a country that is so heavily regulated you can’t even talk on your cellphone while driving, these people can get away with that???

“The silly thing throughout has been that had Mr Peters told the truth at the outset, no harm would have been done. ”

And therein lies the rub. This is less about what Peters did or did not legally do (although the further investigations have given rise to some serious smells) but the fact that Peters is a liar and a hypocrite. Although seemingly still good enough to hold a ministerial warrant in a Labour government.

You comments IMHO hit the nail on the head, there is a lot more to this. One fact in the NZ Herald story about Paul Moroney today is that he told his sister the Labour MP Sue Moroney parts of this story 3 months ago. Helen “Pontius Pilate’ Clark and Mike ‘the unmitigated falsifier of veracity’ Williams knew all along. Who else knew? It’s hard to imagine other senior ministers not knowing anything about this matter months ago.

As Lindsay says, the Herald has more from Maroney which destroys Peters defence about the Karaka lunch completely and confirms Labour knew all this at least three months ago when Maroney told his sister.

First apologies for the length of this quote, it’s Barry Soper’s Political Report on the Newstalkzb website.

It’s worth reading for the witty and rather caustic tone! 😆

By now you are probably Petered out. It has been like a long running soap opera with Luigi Peters stretching our imagination to such an extent that it is possible to begin believing the unbelievable.

Clearly he is in that league and anyone who is not is a clown, a moron or a meercat. He presents his case with such conviction, saying the most outrageous things, and expecting an acceptance of his point of view.

His colleagues on the wet bus ticket committee will have to do all in their power not to succumb to the Stockholm syndrome. How could they possibly doubt his belief in himself which is absolute.

He has now even got the Labour lot not only biting the hand that fed them, but spit roasting it to a cinder. Trouble is they can not seem to suppress that one finger that remains rigid.

Their billionaire benefactor who gave them half a million bucks at the last election now clearly believes it is the worst investment he has ever made. As a parting shot to his home country Owen Glenn described Head Girl Helen as self serving, her president Mike Williams as a liar and Savage Mickey Cullen as a bully.

Running true to form Savage Mickey told the grizzlies in the bear pit that not only had the transport tycoon lost his memory he has failed to support some of his claims with evidence and his tongue has become looser and his claims more outrageous by the day.

It is incredible how a man who is so clearly deficient can head a multi million dollar transport logistics company!

At least he provided more evidence than Luigi managed to stump up with which was not hard because to use a word he is fond of there was not a skerrick of it.

But low and behold he came to the pit waving an affidavit around saying it proves he did not thank Glenn for his donation at a hospitality tent lunch as has been claimed in another affidavit.

But his affidavit shows his memory is deficient, he was not at the same table as Glenn as he claimed. They did talk, but Luigi’s man believed Glenn’s informant had left and could not possibly have heard him expressing gratitude for the donation.

Yep, just has to be. The Herald makes the point that Peters could have told the truth at the outset. So why didn’t he? Plainly because there is something else going on. It would not surprise me to learn that the story we are hearing, (that the payment was made to help Winston with his legal expenses) is completely false.

There’s still the strange reluctance of Helen Klark to speak frankly on this issue and her stubborn resistance to firing Winston. What’s behind all of that?? Something extremely deep and murky has been percolating here. I’d like to see NZ’s media asking a lot more questions than they have so far.

Clark knew about the donation definitely in Feb and possibly as far back as Dec 2005. She knew that Peters has been lying throughout the ‘No means No’ charade, and we can be certain that she knew he was repeatedly filing falsified returns.

But as Bill English said yesterday – Peters knows where the bodies are burried (code for he knows which live ones were repatriated under diplomatic cover)

I want more heat put on Clark. Please, please MSM: get the blowtorch down her Y-fronts.

The other ‘client’ is Mike Williams who was sitting opposite Mr Glenn while he talked to Winnie on the blower, at the same time Mr Williams called Mr Henry who emailed Mr Glenn. It is all really obvious and innocent………not.

I shouldn’t make up such fanciful stories, next it will be presented to the PC as evidence.

“[Glen] will surely rid us of a politician who misused his considerable talent and charm to mislead the public on important policies, sow fear and suspicion of change and survive on a populism that has turned out to be not only destructive but dishonest.”

Surely?

Listen to talkback. Winston Peters continues to have a following oblivious to fact. I admit to a deep, deep, desire to have some well earned schedenfruede on that man’s downfall, but it would not surprise me to see a 4th Labour-led Government propped up by the usual suspects.

My guess is that Clark is petrified if she gets rid of Peters once and for all either him (Peters) or someone else in the Poodles First Party will blurt out the real truth behind this slimy business and f**k Labour.

If we are all satisfied that Winston has lied – then we have now a duty to ask ‘Why would he lie?’ and as importantly, ‘Why would Helen Clark support him in his lie?”

Helen Clark, Mike Williams and Winston Peters are all up to their necks in this shameful situation. Helen Clark has been privy to information which was damning to Labour’s credibility and hid it from parliament even after the privileges committee was ordered. Why? to vouchsafe the coalition which was effectively bought by Owen Glenn. Mike Williams, who, not so long ago offered his resignation to Helen Clark because he was caught in a lie, has come out of this sounding hollow, for questioning Glenn’s credibility as a witness. Winston Peter’s only line of defence thus far has been to flap and obscuficate, never once clearing the matter up ‘in five minutes’ as he once promised. He has been left looking disgraceful, like the those worst kinds of villain, who, having been convicted for a heinous crime,to whom now compensation must be paid, for his ‘hurt feelings’.

What kind of lobotomized idiot believes that if Winston had “come clean” and told the truth that this would all have been ok, nothing to see here, move on?

Are you trying to convince me that there is no one out there who could have put two and two together and deduced that Winston’s support for this self serving “government” was paid for with more than baubles?

I watched both Winnie the Turd and the corrupt old dyke on the news last night and the pair of them were both blinking like fucking bats that had been dragged out into bright sunlight. Lying pieces of shit the pair of them. It is truly disgusting that they have the audacity to try and feed us their bullshit and even more disgusting that so many ignorant shit heads believe anything they say.

This country is fucked and the arrogance of the ignorant twats who believe it is anything more than a bumfuck backwater, a pimple on the earths arse, is astounding. 4 million ignorant sheep fuckers carry about as much clout on the world stage as I carry in parliament. The fear of so many stupid people who think that the country has assets worth raping and pillaging by overseas “gazillionaires” is mind boggling. Seriously, what do we actually have to offer that can’t be produced elsewhere at a lower cost?

Don’t get me wrong, I love(d) living here and it is a scenic, spacious environment. Kiwi nationalism, pride(???) and xenophobia are being exploited by corrupt, evil scumbags like Clarke to line their own pockets and force their fucked up ideology on us. To achieve what? Other than to fuck up the lives of a bunch of ignorant peasants. They are fucking idiots and should be strung up a la 1789. Scum.

Redbaiter “It would not surprise me to learn that the story we are hearing, (that the payment was made to help Winston with his legal expenses) is completely false.”

Lets remember that Clarkson was awarded $40k for his costs in the case. If Henry paid that from the $100k that would mean his costs where 50% higher than Clarkson’s which is strange for a “blood brother” who doesn’t care about charging Winnie fees. But Henry said he paid the $40k out of his own pocket, and then Winnie suddenly remembered that he actually paid it. So if either is correct then the $100k was not used to pay the $40k meaning Henry’s costs were 2.5 times higher than Clarkson’s for that court case. This does seem a bit dodgy.

Erratum. I thought this situation was an indictment of a shonky administration which had been bought and paid for to rig the coalition, and keep it in power, bypass the cross-party calls to end anonymous donations, and cover up the nasty isnider dealings between Williams, Clark, Peters and Glenn, in part caused by the MMP system, but all along the whole thing was a cleverly constructed piece of guerilla theatre designed to illustrate the merits of state-funding for political parties.
Thank you Labour. Thank you Helen, for showing me the true light.

It is indeed amazing, no staggering, that despite all of what has been going on, Labour is gaining more and more support in the polls. It never stops to surprise me how “gullable” the average New Zealanders are.

Now Paul Moroney is saying that over 3 months ago he told his sister (Labour’s whip Sue Moroney) about all the matters he put in his affidavit. Can we really beleive that infomration was not passed on to Helen. I bet Christmas will be fun for the Moroney family.

“There remains insufficient evidence to determine exactly what happened between Mr Peters and Mr Glenn. The conflicting evidence would make it unreasonable for me to take any action at this point so I am happy to leave it up to voters at the polls.”

“Mr Peters will therefore remain stood-down from his ministerial position but he will not be sacked”

That will avoid the risk of (as one commentator put it) Peters “going feral” and exposing Clark’s deceit and dishonesty over her own involvement in this sad affair.

Of course we still won’t know when that election will be but I’m picking she knows that a month (or two) is a long time in politics and she’ll be hoping that the great unwashed will have largely forgotten this mess by the time they turn up at the polling booth.

Suffice to say that she’ll have her troops digging like hell for *any* dirt they can use against National to further push the WP situation into the background by election day.

Chris Trotter’s good piece in yesterday’s Independent helped my thinking.
Winston was a brilliant Minister of Racing because he was such a punter.
Whereas others punt on the horses he punted on not being found out about his pathological lying.

The Wine Box events were definitely not without elements of truth, but there is a considerable difference between someone who rails against those injustices and untruths to reveal what was really going on, and someone who kicks the tires regularly if not persistently in a populous way to keep himself in the news headlines without really proving much but that he ‘must be worth something’. The first is useful, the second is self-serving and is tantamount to a secondary Wine Box crime, taking advantage of the headlines and ongoing unravelling in self aggrandisement.
To try to revert elements of the present Owen Glenn/Winston/Helen situation to any Wine Box references, after 15 years, as a vendetta, is pathetic, especially taking into account the set-ups of coinciding phone calls, related e-mails, Karaka meetings and conversations “steel reinforced concrete as opposed to bullshit on stilts”.

Hollywood would drop the script as being naively beyond all credibility to hold a real audience for even the first twenty minutes – what used to be the first reel’s duration and the point where if the audience was starting to drift out, it wasn’t really worth putting any of the other reels on, even in random order.

Somebody promised something for the money.
Who, What, Why, When, Where and How?
My guess-
Who- Messrs Williams and Peters to Mr Glenn.
What- the honorary consulship of New Zealand in Monaco.
Why- to save Mr Peters from becoming bankrupt; his price for supporting a Labour government
When- sometime between 1.26 pm and 1.33 p.m. on the 14th December 2005; earlier promises had been made
How- negotiated by Mr Peters and Glen, facilitated by Mr Williams.
Or maybe it is all just a media beat-up.

Once again Redbaiter is 100% correct, his comments highlight the outrageous left wing media bias in NZ.

Can you imagine the heat that would be on the Nat’s if one of their benefactors offered a “donation” to another party on the basis that they go into coalition with National?… the pinko media would be in a frenzy.

There is an orchestrated campaign by the left wing media to minimise Klark’s and Labour’s involvement in all this, the fact that they refuse to follow up on the revelations in “Absolute Power” and the way they have ignored the fact that Glenn bribed Peters to go into a coalition with Labour is proof of this corruption.

These same media “slime” (an accurate description coined by Bob Jones) went feral over the falsehoods and lies contained in Nicky Hagers book, they refused to point out the lies or half truths, all they cared about was that it helped Labour.

Make no mistake, Peters lies are simply a side show, the real issue here is that a Labour party man bribed Peters so he would go into a coalition with Labour, that alone should be enough to force the resignation of dear corrupt leader.

I am a political bs novice (thankfully) can someone please tell me how come it is legal or appropriate for someone who is under 3 separate investigations (police, SFO and priv committee) to be instrumental in passing the most contentious legislation in NZ for years? (ETS) Taken to it’s conclusion, if Clark knew in February or earlier then the issue should have been addressed then. If it had then it puts bad light on any legislation passed in the last 6 months by the supprt of NZ First?? Bizarre.

Perhaps DPF or someone with legal knowledge could answer this?
IF, during the negotiations to form a new government in 2005, Helen Clark offered Winston Peters financial assistance (in the form of getting a wealthy donor to make a suitable donation to assist Winston Peters with his legal fees) in order to secure his support to form a ministry, would that not be bribery of a public servant?